When the elevator thumped to a stop, Langdon was relieved to feel terra firma beneath his feet. But when the doors slid open, his relief evaporated. Robert Langdon found himself standing once again in a totally alien world.

The passageway stretched out indefinitely in both directions, left and right. It was a smooth cement tunnel, wide enough to allow passage of an eighteen wheeler. Brightly lit where they stood, the corridor turned pitch black farther down. A damp wind rustled out of the darkness—an unsettling reminder that they were now deep in the earth. Langdon could almost sense the weight of the dirt and stone now hanging above his head. For an instant he was nine years old… the darkness forcing him back… back to the five hours of crushing blackness that haunted him still. Clenching his fists, he fought it off.

Vittoria remained hushed as she exited the elevator and strode off without hesitation into the darkness without them. Overhead the flourescents flickered on to light her path. The effect was unsettling, Langdon thought, as if the tunnel were alive… anticipating her every move. Langdon and Kohler followed, trailing a distance behind. The lights extinguished automatically behind them.

"This particle accelerator," Langdon said quietly. "It’s down this tunnel someplace?"

"That’s it there." Kohler motioned to his left where a polished, chrome tube ran along the tunnel’s inner wall.

Langdon eyed the tube, confused. "That’s the accelerator?" The device looked nothing like he had imagined. It was perfectly straight, about three feet in diameter, and extended horizontally the visible length of the tunnel before disappearing into the darkness. Looks more like a high-tech sewer, Langdon thought. "I thought particle accelerators were circular."

"This accelerator is a circle," Kohler said. "It appears straight, but that is an optical illusion. The circumference of this tunnel is so large that the curve is imperceptible—like that of the earth."

Langdon was flabbergasted. This is a circle? "But… it must be enormous!"

"The LHC is the largest machine in the world."

Langdon did a double take. He remembered the CERN driver saying something about a huge machine buried in the earth. But—

"It is over eight kilometers in diameter… and twenty-seven kilometers long."

Langdon’s head whipped around. "Twenty-seven kilometers?" He stared at the director and then turned and looked into the darkened tunnel before him. "This tunnel is twenty-seven kilometers long? That’s… that’s over sixteen miles!"

Kohler nodded. "Bored in a perfect circle. It extends all the way into France before curving back here to this spot. Fully accelerated particles will circle the tube more than ten thousand times in a single second before they collide."

Langdon’s legs felt rubbery as he stared down the gaping tunnel. "You’re telling me that CERN dug out millions of tons of earth just to smash tiny particles?"

Kohler shrugged. "Sometimes to find truth, one must move mountains."

16

Hundreds of miles from CERN, a voice crackled through a walkie-talkie. "Okay, I’m in the hallway."

The technician monitoring the video screens pressed the button on his transmitter. "You’re looking for camera #86. It’s supposed to be at the far end."

There was a long silence on the radio. The waiting technician broke a light sweat. Finally his radio clicked.

"The camera isn’t here," the voice said. "I can see where it was mounted, though. Somebody must have removed it."

The technician exhaled heavily. "Thanks. Hold on a second, will you?"

Sighing, he redirected his attention to the bank of video screens in front of him. Huge portions of the complex were open to the public, and wireless cameras had gone missing before, usually stolen by visiting pranksters looking for souvenirs. But as soon as a camera left the facility and was out of range, the signal was lost, and the screen went blank. Perplexed, the technician gazed up at the monitor. A crystal clear image was still coming from camera #86.

If the camera was stolen, he wondered, why are we still getting a signal? He knew, of course, there was only one explanation. The camera was still inside the complex, and someone had simply moved it. But who? And why?

He studied the monitor a long moment. Finally he picked up his walkie-talkie. "Are there any closets in that stairwell? Any cupboards or dark alcoves?"

The voice replying sounded confused. "No. Why?"

The technician frowned. "Never mind. Thanks for your help." He turned off his walkie-talkie and pursed his lips.